Inferno

This quick but satisfying read follows heart-broken Dante (her mom still insists upon calling her Emily) as she finally makes a few friends who might understand how she feels. Parker, James and Leo are rebellious in ways that excite and scare Dante. They don't go to school, and Parker and James even have their own apartment. Dante knows her well-meaning mother did not picture these people when she encouraged her to make some new friends, but these are people who understand how stifling school is for her. Last year, she had Beth to be with, but Beth moved away and won't answer her emails. All Dante is left with are rumors at school about her sexuality (which might be true), and Beth's updated Facebook status.
Dante's urge to rebel show more realistically conflicts with her loyalty to her parents. Although one character is a bit predictable, most of the characters are outsiders and they come across as multi-layered people who seem to have interesting backstories of their own.
Instead of just alluding to Dante's Inferno and assuming the readers have read it already, Dante explains aspects of the epic poem that she thinks about and how they relate to her life. High-schoolers might be inspired to read it themselves.
If you are a librarian serving teenagers, you should have this book in your collection. It seems so many good books about gay themes are about boys - this has a wonderful female lead. Dante is strong, smart, and has integrity. show less

Smart, independent Dante is struggling at the school she's been attending since she and her parents moved over a year ago, and being brokenhearted due to her secret girlfriend moving away isn't helping matters. For her sixteenth birthday she changed her name to Dante after reading Dante Alighieri's Inferno, but her mother still calls her Emily and sends her to a support group for girls. It is there that Dante gets to know Parker, a mysterious girl who quit school and lives with her boyfriend.

Dante is an independent thinker and Parker easily convinces her to get involved in her protests against free speech and schools' strict rules. Soon Dante is sneaking out of her house in the middle of the night and scaling walls to hang banners. show more Things are not all fun and games for long however, and when Parker's group decides to protest the status quo in a way that people will notice and remember, Dante must decide how far she'll go to help a friend.

I like Dante, but then I almost always like smart and independent female protagonists. She's also a bit quirky but confident in her quirks, but I almost always like that too. So perhaps I was destined to like her. That said (and none too eloquently either), what I really enjoyed was knowing how Dante perceived herself and comparing that to how others saw her. How she came across so confident and self-assured and yet really didn't know what to do most of the time. How her actions were definitive but the decisions going into her actions often weren't. The saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" could certainly be used to explain what happens with Dante, but that may be taking the Inferno metaphor too far.

The people who populate the rest of Dante's world were fascinating. I particularly enjoyed her parents and their distinct personalities and reactions. Parker was complex and almost unbearable to watch sometimes. Her situation was heartbreaking but scarily accurate, and of all the characters I wonder most about what happened to her. I doubt I'm the only one she sticks with.

As a side note, I love the cover. show less

How refreshing is it to have a book with a lesbian main character without it being about the Agony and the Suffering of Being Different from Everyone Because I Like Girls, O Woe is Me. That said, this book didn't stick with me very well.

Dante has just moved from the city to the 'burbs, and her school is at least one of the lower circles of hell. That all starts to change when she meets--and starts to fall for--the beautiful Parker, who sucks Dante into her rebellion. To tell the truth, I read this a few months ago and all I remember is the refreshing lack of angst around Dante's sexuality.

Dante “Emily” Griffin believes that high school is the 10th circle of Hell. After being uprooted from her urban school and transplanted into suburbia, Dante makes only one special friend, Beth. But when Beth’s family has to move far away, Dante finds herself in a miserable little town and friendless. Nevertheless, on the first day back to school after Beth’s departure, Dante meets Parker, a girl with crazy blonde hair and no eyebrows, who lives with her boyfriend (rather than her parents), and is a pancake flipping, high school drop-out. Through her relationship with Parker, Dante finds a way to express her frustration with school, her anger, and loneliness. But when Parker’s friends want to take their criticism of the local show more high school to the next step, Dante must find a way to protect Parker and to stop the destruction of the high school she hates.

Robin Stevenson’s Inferno is a clever, witty, and fast-paced read. Although stories of teen angst and self-discovery are not unique, Stevenson has given Dante an original voice and imbued her story with believable teen situations and characters. Never, as a reader, did I feel that the author was being preachy or heavy-handed in her narrative and, despite the somewhat unbelievable events that transpire, Stevenson’s novel proves a genuine, heartfelt and sensitive tale. My only disappointment lies in a rich array of secondary characters introduced from which I would have wanted to hear more. show less

It took me a little while to warm up to Dante. Her hatred of school and deliberate baiting of her English teacher, even her name change, seemed like a childish temper tantrum. But then it's time for Dante to see a world outside high school. But this story captures the feeling of an overwhelming crush, and the agony of watching someone you love self destruct - by the end I was cheering for Dante and I was proud of her strength.

Ever since her only friend, Beth, moved away, Dante has hated her new high school, Glen Ridge Secondary School. Hours of sitting in pointless classes, being bullied by mean teachers, forced to follow the school rules without complaint…Her parents aren’t making it better for her either. Her mother doesn’t want Dante to become a social outcast, and yet insist on keeping her tightly reined, as if that will help her daughter.

Then one day, a strange girl thrusts a flyer that says “Woof, woof. You are not a dog. Why are you going to obedience school?” into Dante’s hands, and Dante thinks she has found a soulmate. The girl, Parker, introduces Dante to two other guys who have similar thoughts about established institutions such as show more schools and jails, and they do things to protest the mundanity of it all. For once, Dante is elated, and she continues to be inexplicably drawn to Parker and unable—or unwilling—to explain her feelings.

But when her friends plan something that can really be out of control, and Parker needs her help, what is Dante to do? How much is too much, and what done in the name of protest is actually useless, unhelpful, and dangerous?

INFERNO deals with an overwhelming number of issues in a way that leaves us unsatisfied. In the span of a little over 200 pages, Stevenson tries to deal with rebellion, parental misunderstanding, homosexuality, arson, unhealthy vs. healthy friendships…Whoa! There are probably more that I missed. Just one of these topics is something that deserves a book to itself. Cramming all of these into one book results in me feeling dissatisfied and cheated out of a better, more complete and fulfilling story.

Dante is a mediocre protagonist who makes bad decisions I often can’t relate to; as a result, she hardly garners my respect and empathy. Similarly, Parker, while a compelling IDEA of a character, falls flat in practice. Her personality ranges from enigmatic, strong, and intelligent to scared and indecisive, to flirtatious and manipulative. While it is totally possible that all of these traits exist in one character, in Parker they felt disjointed, as if she were three different characters trying—and failing—to masquerade as one. As a result, I was unable to sympathize with her character, even though I admit that her problems are plenty and definitely deserve attention and maybe even therapy.

Similarly, other supporting characters are either one-dimensional or else so caricature-esque that I couldn’t get into them. Jamie, Parker’s boyfriend, is unrelentingly the angry disenfranchised youth with the unexplained past. Leo, their other friend, has a backstory, but it seems totally separate from the person he is now. Dante’s mother was infuriating, but that was probably for personal reasons. I only wish that Dante’s parents were more complex characters, so I could actually believe their shifts in emotions and the mother-daughter bonding moments. Because right now I don’t believe them.

All hope is NOT lost, however. The plot, while predictable, still managed to capture my attention and keep me reading. This book is really a plot-driven one. INFERNO is a beginners’ introduction to a variety of complex issues that need to be explored at a greater depth. I’m not sure who to recommend this to because there are much better books that discuss these topics out there. show less

"This is an engaging book about a young girl (formerly named Emily) who is trying to find herself within an oppressive high school and disappointed mother. She has an interesting journey and although the content is a little mature (maybe 12 ) the writing is very accessible. The book is written from Dante/Emily's point of view which was bang-on for the voice and age of the character.

I don't have much more to say without giving anything away; it's really about Dante's personal journey. I enjoyed the book and it was a quick, engaging read for me. The writing was fast-paced and the teenage voice was very real. I was also very impressed with how Robin Stevenson deal with the GLBT content and proud that a BC author and publisher put this in a show more YA novel.

Read my full review here: http://www.monniblog.com/2010/02/inferno-by-robin-stevenson/" show less